Birch trees swayed in the gentle breeze, casting long shadows on the colorful wooden houses that were coming to life after a long, cold winter. Earlier, we had dug up trash from a dump by the pond and buried it in the sandpile by Igor’s dacha. Then we lit a fire in a rusty barrel and melted old plastic toys—typical pastimes for kids with too much free time on their hands in rural Russia. Earlier, we had played dodgeball on the beat-up road, and now we were looking for a way to retrieve the ...